Brandon shifted a little bit as Jamie released his arm. Elliott somehow saw it from across the room and shot over to his son’s bed, and Cadence wondered if he was using Jamie’s IAC or had used his X-ray vision to see through the beds between them.
She stood and stepped over a few feet so she was standing right next to his cot, and Brandon moved again. A few seconds later, he began to blink, and then he was staring at the three of them, confused. “Why are you all in my bedroom?”
“Oh, good, you’re alive,” Jamie said, smirking at him. “How do you feel?”
It must’ve suddenly dawned on Brandon where he was. He raised his hand up in front of his face and looked shocked at how quickly he could move. “I feel weird,” he said slowly. “Like… everything is different, but everything is still the same.”
“Well, that seems to be a common response,” Jamie said, taking his stethoscope from around his neck and putting it in his ears. “Let me take a listen.”
Brandon laid still, and Jamie listened to him in several places and then checked his pulse one more time before nodding and saying, “Everything sounds fine. I would say you could go home, but I guess you won’t want to.”
“Why is that?” Brandon’s forehead crinkled, and Cadence exchanged glances with Jamie and Elliott. She’d assumed Brandon knew what Cassidy had planned, but it occurred to her that he had no idea what she’d done and hadn’t noticed her sister sleeping on the cot beside him or even gathered the fact that when he’d undergone the procedure, there hadn’t been a cot there. Not to mention she wasn’t there to greet him when he opened his eyes.
Cadence realized Jamie and Elliott were looking at her expectantly. “What? He’s your kid.”
“She’s your sister,” Elliott countered.
“Are y’all attempting to freak me out?” Brandon asked, leaning up on his elbows. “Cause it’s working. What’s the matter?”
“Uh… Cass pulled a Cass,” Cadence said, moving out of the way so he could see.
She wasn’t expecting him to shoot out of the bed, but he did, and he nearly tipped the whole thing over in his haste to get to his feet. Jamie caught it before it toppled to the ground, and Liz let out a loud moan but didn’t wake up.
“What the hell?” Brandon asked, grabbing Cassidy’s hand. He looked over his shoulder at Jamie. “I thought you weren’t going to do hers yet.”
“So did I,” he retorted. “But Cass had other plans. She gave herself the first injection while we weren’t looking, and Sicilia had no choice but to give her the second one.”
“What were you doing?” Brandon asked, and Cadence thought it was a strange question under the circumstances, but maybe he wanted to know since Jamie was supposed to be monitoring him.
“I was trying to keep Shane from ripping the room apart,” Jamie said nonchalantly.
“You really missed a lot,” Elliott said to Brandon, stepping around to his son’s other side and putting a hand on his shoulder. “I recommend not falling asleep for most of the day again.”
“Or dying for eight months?” Brandon said, sarcastically.
“That will also keep you out of the loop.”
“So… is she okay?” Brandon asked, staring at Cassidy like he might be able to make her wake up that way.
“We don’t know, but so far her heart rate is a little slower than the rest of yours, and she seems to be sleeping, so, I guess so,” Jamie replied, also joining the rest of them at Cassidy’s bedside.
“I cannot believe she’d do something so…”
“Stupid?” Elliott offered.
“Reckless?” Jamie asked.
“Dangerous,” Cadence whispered.
“All of those things,” Brandon agreed, shaking his head. “Dammit, Cass.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Jamie reassured him, and his tone really did convey that he wasn’t worried, but Cadence wouldn’t believe her little sister was all right until she saw it with her own two eyes.
“What are y’all staring at?”
She turned around to see Dax standing behind her, and Cadence’s mouth dropped open.
“Oops. Guess I missed one,” Jamie muttered. “How you doing, Dax?”
“Fine. Just feel a little weird.” He waved his hand around, too, like everyone else had done, and Cadence stifled a giggle.
“Why don’t you have a seat and let me do a few quick checks,” Jamie suggested, and Dax sat down in the chair Cadence had spent most of the day in.
“I thought you weren’t letting Cass go through the procedure yet, Cadence,” Dax said as Jamie checked his heart rate and did all of the other things he’d just done to Brandon.
“So did I. Cass does what Cass wants to do.” It was the only explanation Cadence was capable of at the moment. She was exhausted, and even though she’d eaten dinner around 10:00, she hadn’t had anything since, and her stomach was rumbling.
“You’re fine,” Jamie declared. “If you wanna go wake Tara up and go home, you’re clear to do so.”
“Awesome,” Dax said shooting up out of the chair. Jamie caught it before it hit the ground. The new Guardian turned a little pink. “Sorry.”
“You guys have to learn your own strength,” Jamie said with a smile.
Dax went across the room to collect his girlfriend, and Cadence shifted her attention back to Cassidy. She oscillated between wanting to shake her and ask her why she kept doing such stupid things and praying when she woke up she wouldn’t have done any damage. Thoughts about how she might have hurt herself kept flooding her mind, and she had to fight them off.
“Well, I would guess she’ll come around here pretty quickly if Dax is awake,” Elliott whispered, likely trying not to wake up Cadence’s mother.
“I don’t know, though. It’s not like we’ve ever done this with a Hybrid before,” Jamie reminded them all.
Elliott hopped up onto the bed Brandon had recently vacated and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Staring at Cass won’t make her boil any faster.”
It was a good point, and Cadence reclaimed her seat, offering the one Aaron had spent many hours in to Brandon. He took it, but he continued to stare at the immobile figure on the bed. Cadence reached over and took his hand, certain he had to be having a hard time with all of this, and Jamie went about updating the charts hanging at the foot of Brandon’s and Dax’s beds.
Cadence pondered turning in the Melbourne hunt now that everyone was awake except her sister, but she was afraid it would be too much of a distraction. Her plan had been to have Cass interfere with Holland’s signal while Paul led his team in, but that had gone out the window, and now she was certain they would struggle, even though Holland wasn’t even there. Hopefully, they would at least get some good intel and then could drop back and regroup, maybe even wait for the KC team to come over and help out, but if Holland had a chance to do some damage to the Melbourne team, she wouldn’t hesitate to do so. Paul was in for quite a battle, especially now that Holland would be at full strength. She only hoped there was something else going on somewhere else to distract the monster.
